And Sony achieved all of this with their first console. They had the world at their feet. So you can probably imagine the reaction they got when they announced their second console, the originally titled PS2. The world went nuts even before anything was known about its technical areas. When the specs came out, however, may people (this correspondent included) expressed doubt about some areas of the PS2, and specifically I was sceptical whether Sony would be able to keep up with the undoubtedly massive demand for PS2. However, on the whole people were telling Sony that they couldn't lose.
And I think Sony listened. They took their eye off the ball to listen to their girlfriends cheering them on from the crowd, and fumbled. I guess some of you will be saying now 'Uh, look at the sales figures, dumbass. Something that sells that well has to be all good'. Well, I want to try and persuade you otherwise. The key to the success of any console is not the hardware, it is the games. And this does not mean that if you hash together one good game, you will sell. The Nintendo 64 had more advanced hardware than the PlayStation; arguably the four greatest console games of all time (Mario 64, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Zelda) made for it and still got eaten alive. As the Tennessee Titans learned, you gotta have strength in depth. No use having an Eddie George if when he goes out you only have a Rick Burrett.
And the quality games just aren't there. Sure, there are games coming up which will be stunning (Metal Gear Solid 2 will be the Game of Next Year. Mark my words). But a handful of games do not a system make. And Sony are in deep trouble. The first sign of trouble came when the early PS2's arrived with developers, and there was no middleware software supplied. (Middleware is software that allows programmers to run their game on a console). When it did, it was bugged and very basic indeed. Basically, this meant that the software developers had to write their own, which took huge amounts of unnecessary time. The most telling admission of trouble came when Sony admitted that some of their in-house developers were not using their own middleware.
